Tesla's First Quarterly Sales Gain This Year Comes Up Short

Tesla Inc. posted its first increase in quarterly vehicle sales this year, though the automaker let down investors expecting more of a bump from China boosting electric car subsidies.

(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc. posted its first increase in quarterly vehicle sales this year, though the automaker let down investors expecting more of a bump from China boosting electric car subsidies.

The Elon Musk-led company handed over 462,890 vehicles to customers in the last three months, up 6.4% from a year ago. The deliveries reported in a statement Wednesday came up shy of the roughly 463,900 units that analysts were expecting.

Tesla shares traded down as much as 5% as of 9:45 a.m. Wednesday in New York trading. The stock had jumped 35% in the eight weeks leading up to the report.

Tesla got a lift during the quarter from China’s government doubling an incentive for drivers to trade in older vehicles for electric models, stoking demand in the world’s largest EV market. This fueled optimism about improving sales and coincided with rising expectations for an Oct. 10 event near Los Angeles, where Musk will unveil self-driving vehicle prototypes.

“This will be one for the history books,” the CEO wrote last week on X, the social media service he owns.

Tesla shares have had a tumultuous 2024, recovering from a more than 40% rout as of mid-April largely due to anticipation of Musk’s long-promised robotaxis.

The jump in deliveries snaps a losing streak for Tesla — vehicle sales slumped in each of the first two quarters of the year. While the Austin-based company has warned it may grow at a notably lower rate this year, it’s teased plans to begin producing cheaper models in the first half of 2025.

Tesla’s energy business, on the other hand, took a step back from a record second quarter. The company deployed 6.9 gigawatt hours of storage products in the last three months, down more than a quarter from the period that ended in June.

The company has still managed to deploy more energy storage products already this year than in all of 2023. 

Tesla scheduled the release of its third-quarter financial results for after the market close on Oct. 23.

(Updates share move in the third paragraph.)